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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

We have evidence of creation possibility 24/7 today. Humanity and other lifeforms create and design since ancient past (buildings for example) and now we have other ways to see that intelligent design is possible. Take robotics for example.

Why are you ignoring what other people have aready explained to you? Regarding this subject, you have posted an almost identical comment not so long ago, to which I have replied that such an easy and naive analogy has no evidence that supports it. Of course there are fiction books, movies or whatever that base their stories on it, but that's what they are: fiction. And again, of course we are able, as humans, to creatively organize matter into complex forms, but this is totally irrelevant as an argument in support of any idea about an "intelligent design" of the universe.

The fact that something can be imagined or described doesn't make it real: in other words, it doesn't become a fact itself, unless you work in order to find strong evidence that supports it, AND you actually find such an evidence. Besides, the so much self-celebrated human mind wouldn't produce a great proof of its magnificence, rationality and creativity if it couldn't go beyond the idea of a supreme being who acts and behaves exactly like the human beings themselves.

Arcane, you were here on this forum as well when a few of us were trying to fix some common and incorrect ideas about science, and yet you seem determined to ignore that, while persisting in digging up sensationalist and non-relevant web links and claims in support of what seem to be your personal prejudices about science. Why?

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Even scientists who work with robotic science show possibility that humanity (and even more life) might have been result of Alien|God.

You still didn't answer to Tobi's request for a citation, and it would be interesting if you did. We would then know who those scientists are and in which context they might have expressed those statements.

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Why is it that we have multiple pieces of evidence of creativity design but can't put them all together? It is up to individual to take route to truth but if you wont consider all available routes it might take too much time.

Regarding "creative design", please see above. And if "considering all available routes" actually means investigating the existence of available evidence in support of any possible ideas that you may have conceived about reality, then be my guest, Arcane. You might even become a real scientist in the process, and we would be proud of you if you did. But you would notice soon that very few possible explanations of what there is are actually supported by facts, while the gigantic remainder is not. Let alone contradictory statements or nonsenses, which cannot be proved by definition.

Why are you ignoring what other people have aready explained to you? {...}

Because it is pointless...

No, Arcane, you are simply showing us that you are not willing to listen to what others are saying. You are deliberately ignoring questions directed to you, as well as extensive and generous answers (see enorbet's posts, for example). You seem to prefer a biased, black-and-white kind of dispute, instead of an open conversation where all parties are listening before they speak, they try to understand each other's points, and eventually they might be open to enrich their own views. You don't, Arcane, and your attitude is sometimes very close to that of a troll.

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Here is another funny ironic observation - people who don't prefer to believe in God somehow tend to believe in opposite...wtf?

Now are you suggesting that some of us are satanists? Please don't do that, because that would be a quite stupid way to answer to other people by attacking them blindly, especially if you are refusing the terms and rules of a rational conversation in the first place. And we all know that you are not stupid.

I happen to enjoy looking at the world around me, and the stars above me, etcetera, while feeling completely relieved of the "need" to couch it in terms of: "an omnipotent yet strangely-powerless God, who by the way is pissed-off at every human that He has made, who is eternally at war with an equally thoroughly pissed-off angel that He also made."

Or, for that matter, to couch it in terms of anything else.

Y'know, it really doesn't take much to realize that this is a human tale, largely engineered to keep the (illiterate ...) plebes comfortably in-line with the social norms of the ruling class. I'm actually comfortable with that, and I know that it has nothing to do with what I see when I, say, look up at the stars.

I don't have "the eternal answer." But, I'm not looking for it, either. I hear a "still, small voice" from time to time, and I listen attentively when I hear it. Somehow, I know that voice – even though my intellect can't tell me how or why. I "lean not to my own understanding" with regard to these things, and I don't pass judgment on whatever you do or don't choose to do.

I think that so-called "highly religious people" err in this way, even though they do it with perhaps the very best of intentions. We have a very strong tendency to form groups, and to adopt a single leadership and/or manner of thought within that group, at the exclusion of all other. This is probably a survival characterstic of the human animal, but it does get in the way sometimes. It tends to put one "blind man" at furious odds with another "blind man," because both of them are equally certain about "the elephant." It is very difficult to realize, let alone to (grudgingly ...) accept that we will never know the elephant. That we are simply not capable of it, even though we will never cease to try.

Hmm, sundialsvcs, just curious about that small voice, did you vote Agnostic?

I was raised as an atheist, in fact probably some variety of nihistic materialist. I loved science books as well as literature when I was growing up. I have a few post graduate degrees, none of them in the humanities, so perhaps if someone is looking for evidence of brain disease, it isn't the sort that destroys my ability to write papers, solve problem sets, memorize things and pass exams. However I have chosen to be a firm believer in Christ. Weird, eh?

If we (all of us at Linuxquestions who participate in this thread instead of voicing our opinions about solving questions regarding our favorite OS) were to have a conversation about belief, perhaps we could start with asking why we believe what we believe.

For some, it might be Authority, whether from family, tradition, culture or things we have read. For others, it might be personal experience, or from the experience of people we implicitly trust. Of course these ways beg the question of why we trust the Authority, or those other people, or even our own senses and experience, when we know so easily we can be deceived. Some of us have great faith in our reasoning abilities, and believe whatever we tell ourselves makes sense.

Many of us suffer a disease of arrogance: we are so smart at some things, like computers, for example, that we assume we are smart at everything, or just as smart as someone who has devoted his or her life to studying it. Usually the sufferer of this malady is blind to it even when it is pointed out to them. It can take years to recover, with frequent relapses, so forgive me if I fall into that particular trap.

Hmm, sundialsvcs, just curious about that small voice, did you vote Agnostic?

I was raised as an atheist, in fact probably some variety of nihistic materialist. I loved science books as well as literature when I was growing up. I have a few post graduate degrees, none of them in the humanities, so perhaps if someone is looking for evidence of brain disease, it isn't the sort that destroys my ability to write papers, solve problem sets, memorize things and pass exams. However I have chosen to be a firm believer in Christ. Weird, eh?

Oh, no. Not at all. I'm not agnostic in my beliefs. But I am keenly aware of how little we know when we think, or we say, that we know so very much.

For instance, there's the fascinating (to me) topic called "the quest for the historical Jesus." (By the book-title of the same name, and there are legion.) The Holy Bible, it would seem, never was equipped with digital error-correcting codes. It's a heavily-redacted mash-up ... which should come as no surprise to anyone. The star of the second half of the show has almost no historical mention in any other book, and His words are radically inconsistent (sometimes "radical," sometimes not ...) even among two different accounts of an identical scene. In other words, it's a mess.

All of which I mean to link back to ... we have to temper our religious beliefs, whatever they are or aren't, with a giant dose of "we just don't know." For instance, some folks around here like to say: "The Holy Bible. Inspired. Final." Boom, mind case closed. Or, "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it." You can hear the sound of the massive door slamming shut from a long way off. But I think they're making a big mistake, and building a house on shifting-sand. Basing everything on "knowledge" and "certainty" which, a more skeptical look (and I mean "skeptical" in a good way here ...) would show doesn't exist. Well, it does not have to exist. It shouldn't be expected to exist. That's why they call it, "believing." You just need to be aware of it.

That still, small voice ... I hear it. We all do. Nothing in "our own understanding" says what it is. Likewise, if we want to and are unafraid to, we can recognize and accept what "The Holy Bible" (or any other such book) both isn't ... and, is.

Some of the most utterly-vile evils in all of human history were done "in the name of religion."

When someone says that "God told me to exterminate them ..." my mind instantly switches-off. I don't believe that the Maker of Life commissioned anyone to destroy it for Him. Nor does He need an extra set of hands or a spokesman.

"Evil comes from the heart of man." But evil also comes from the Group-think which organized religions not-so tacitly encourage. This is something that we have to constantly watch-out for. Basically, when someone says to me, "God told me to ...," I'm instantly suspicious. It is far more probable that the idea came strictly from you, and that there is likely to be no good end to it.

I hope you realize that despite the "Dark" or "Black" in the names there is nothing evil in Dark Matter or Black Holes.

Oh yes. I realize. I just know enough to know I don't know enough. A adjective in front of a noun does not make a thing evil.
I am just covering all bases, since no one has ever stepped into the other side to see what certain things we have found contain.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119081/